Police: Man found beaten to death in Brentwood

A man was beaten to death in Brentwood Thursday night while walking down American Boulevard.

According to police, Dewann A.S. Stacks, 34, suffered blunt force trauma to the head. He was pronounced dead at the scene by a physician from the Suffolk County Medical Examiner's Office.

Stacks was from Queens and had recently moved to Brentwood.

Suffolk Police Commissioner Tim Sini says investigators consider the crime gang related. He says they are looking into the victim's background, but believe that his attacker or attackers are gang members.

"Certainly it is a homicide, a homicide by assault, by members of a gang," Sini says.

Marianela Lozano says that her daughter's boyfriend came running into the house to tell her there was a man lying in the street in front of their American Avenue home. She says she called 911 and ran out to be by the man's side during his final moments.

"My husband is a pastor, and I wanted to give him some salvation words," Lozano says. "And he stopped breathing at the moment."

Police say they tried to resuscitate the man, but he died from his injuries.

Police say the victim was a 34-year-old African-American man who had recently moved to Brentwood.

As News 12 previously reported, the bodies of four teenagers from Brentwood were found last month. Police say friends Nisa Mickens and Kayla Cuevas were found beaten to death, and the remains of teens Oscar Acosta and Miguel Garcia-Moran were also found around the same time. Police believe gangs are behind those four slayings.

"I have grandkids," Lozano says. "And I don't want my grandkids to be raised in this neighborhood."

Neighbors say the violence is overwhelming.

Blue is a color affiliated with the MS-13 street gang. Last month, a Brentwood teen had his blue shirt set on fire in another apparent gang attack.

Lozano says Stacks was wearing a blue jacket at the time of his attack, but police said they could not comment on that.